dealers, on paying freight for them at the rate of 2½d. per 10 ℔, or 1s. 6d. per cubic foot. The prices to be paid for European articles are fixed every year, the prices current in Danish and Eskimo being printed and distributed by the Government. According to a calculation, founded on the average of the last few years, about 22 per cent. of the value in the European market is paid for the products in Greenland. Out of the payment five-sixths are given to the sellers, and one-sixth devoted to the Greenlander's public fund, spent in “public works,” in charity, and on other unforeseen contingencies. The object of the monopoly is solely for the good of the Greenlanders,—to prevent spirits being sold to them, and the vice, disease, and misery, which usually attend the collision between civilization of the trader's type and barbarism, being introduced into the primitive arctic community. The inspectors are, in addition to being trade superintendents, magistrates, but serious crime is practically unknown; while the cases of theft which have occurred within a decade are so few that they are held in recollection as historical events. The “vices of civilization” are few, and its diseases unknown. The Danish officials are mostly men of considerable intelligence, and all of good character, though their pay is small. The inspector receives £328 and a residence; the average salaries of the 11 “colonibestyrere” are £250, of the 18 clerks—“assistants” or “volunteers”—£106, besides residence, fuel, and attendance. In addition there are about 182 “ulliggers,” seamen, mechanics, &c., each receiving an average of £25 a year, besides, in the case of the outpost traders, a percentage on their trade. Though the officials are all-powerful, yet, owing to the exertions of Dr Rink, local councils or “parsissaet” were organized in 1857 in every district. To these parish parliaments delegates are sent from every station,—shrewd men, wise in council, and well acquainted with the wants of the Grennlanders. These “parsissoks”—elected at the rate of about one representative to 120 voters—wear a cap with a badge (a bear rampant), and aid the European members of the council in distributing the surplus profit apportioned to each district, and generally in advising as to the welfare of that part of Greenland under their partial control. In 1873 there were deposited, in a savings bank established in Greenland, £200 as contributions for the support of illegitimate children; £199, 10s., sums gained by inheritance or by other unforeseen circumstances; £791, savings from wages, chiefly those of the Europeans; and £121, savings of the Eskimo, or half-bloods. But thrift is the least prominent feature in the Eskimo character. The “municipal council” has the disposal of 20 per cent. of the annual profits made on produce purchased within the confines of each district. It holds two sessions every year, and the discussions are entirely in the Eskimo language. In addition to their functions as guardians of the poor, the parish M.P.'s have to investigate crimes and punish misdemeanours, settle litigations and divide inheritances. They can impose fines for small offences not worth sending before the inspector, and, in cases of high misdemeanour, have the power of inflicting corporal punishment. During the first ten or twelve years the following causes were submitted to trial:—one single case of having in passion occasioned the death of a person, and another of openly threatening; five or six instances of grosser theft or cheating, and as many of concealment of birth and crimes relating to matrimony; every year a few petty thefts, and instances of making use of the tools of others without permission, or of like disorders; and several trifling litigations.
Trade.—The trade of Greenland is entirely confined to that part of the coast colonized by the Danes,—the rude natives of Smith Sound and the east coast contributing nothing to the world's riches. Neither do the civilized people of any other nation trade on the coast, the English “Greenland seal and whale fishery” being a misnomer, for the “fisheries” are pursued on the west coast of Davis Strait and Baffin's Bay, and in the sea between Jan Mayen and Spitzbergen, and occasionally within sight of the east coast of Greenland. Taking the Greenland trade as confined to the west coast, we find, according to the calculations of Rink, that the earnings of the 1877 families of Eskimo under the Danish crown are on an average £15,016 per annum,—giving each family an average annual income of £8 from the produce of the hunt sold to the royal officials. These payments are made in paper notes used as a currency in Greenland. During the twenty years 1853-72, excluding cryolite, the average annual exports consisted of 1185 tuns of oil, 35,439 seal-skins, 1436 fox-skins, 41 bear-skins, 811 waterproof jackets, 1003 waterproof trousers, 3533 ℔ raw eider down, 6900 ℔ feathers, 2300 ℔ whalebone, 550 ℔ narwhal ivory, 87 ℔ walrus ivory, 1817 reindeer hides. During the period 1870-74 the mean annual value of the products received from Greenland was £45,600; that of the cargoes sent thither, £23,844; and the mean expenditure on the ships and crews, £8897. Not including the royalty paid by the company which exports the cryolite (from 1853 to 1874 equal to £58,924), the average profit of the Greenland trade was, for the 21 years between 1853 and 1874, about £6600 yearly. The capital sunk in the “royal trade” is calculated at £64,426; and, taking the whole amount of net revenues from the present trade during the period between 1790 to 1875, the interest on the capital as well as the income from the cryolite royalty being subtracted, the present “direktor” of the Kongelige Grönlandske Handel considers that £160,000 has been earned.
Trading Districts and Census.—A Danish “coloni” in Greenland is not at the best of times a cheerful place, though, in the long days of summer, some of those in the fjords of South Greenland are comparatively pleasant. The houses are almost invariably built of wood, pitched over, and built more for warmth than for appearance. In addition to the three or four Danish houses—the usual number at the chief settlement—there are from 20 or 30 to 300 or 400 Eskimo at the place. They usually live in huts built of turf and stone, each entered by a short tunnel, which in most respects are an improvement over the primitive dwellings of the race elsewhere (see Eskimo). In South Greenland there are seven trading districts; in North Greenland five. From Cape Farewell northward these are as follows. Julianchaab had in 1870 2570 inhabitants, and 8 trading stations. Of the inhabitants, 1056 belonged in 1872 to the Moravian mission settlements, which do not extend much farther north, the other clergy being members of the Danish Church, between whom and the “Herrnhutians” something of the odium theologicum exists. In this district also are the remains of the old Norse settlements of Red Erik, his contemporaries, and his successors. Frederikshaab has six trading stations, which collect about 68 tuns of oil and 1000 seal-skins annually. The population in 1870 was 821; at Ivigtut, in this district, are the cryolite mines. Godthaab has 999 people, 6 stations, and a trade return of 74 tuns of oil and 1000 seal-skins annually. It is the most southern station for eider down, and formerly also for reindeer skins. Cod-fish were also once caught here in great abundance, but this business is now almost abandoned. Godthaab “coloni” is the chief settlement in Greenland. Besides the usual trade officials, one or two Danish missionaries who manage the seminary, and two or three Moravian missionaries [at Ny Herrnhut], the royal inspector of South Greenland, and the physician for the northern part of it reside in this place. In addition to the seminary, Godthaab has a church, of rather imposing appearance for Greenland, but too large for the community, and built of bricks, a material very little suited to the country. The houses of the natives, almost all with sloping roofs of boards, look very pretty, but at Ny Herrnhut they offer a sad appearance. The latter station has a two-storied building, containing accommodation for the missionaries, schoolroom, and church or meeting hall as it is called. At Lichtenfels is another Moravian settlement, but the community has within the last thirty years decreased to one-half, and, owing chiefly to the indiscreet asceticism demanded from their flock by these unworldly men and women, is perhaps the most destitute of material comfort of any in Greenland. In this district are also found Norse ruins, part of the region having been the Vester Bygd of the Icelanders, just as that further south was their Öster Bygd. Sukkertoppen is one of the loftiest and most picturesque districts. It yields about 92 tuns of oil and 1000 seal-skins, also some cod-fish, a few reindeer, and most of the eider down of the country. It has six trading posts and 765 people. Holstenborg has four trading posts, and now yields about 60 tuns of oil and 400 seal-skins, besides whalebone and eider down. There are 545 inhabitants. In 67° 40′ N. lat. Nagsutok or North Ström Fjord forms the boundary between South and North Greenland; the settlements which follow are therefore in the latter inspectorate. Egedesminde is in a state of decadence, the present production being about 74 tuns of oil and 3400 seal-skins collected annually by six stations. In 1870 the population was 1008, the greater number living at the chief settlement of the same name. Christianshaab has four trading posts, which collect from 481 inhabitants 110 tuns of oil and 1700 seal-skins. Christianshaab is one of the pleasantest dis-
